A Veteran Hotel Designer on the Fallacy of Instagrammable Moments
Photo Credit: Stroop and his team at Stonehill Taylor submitted this hotel concept, the IRUS, which features a flexible wall, for a design competition last year. Stonehill Taylor
Skift Take
Gimmicky, Instagram-driven designs are out. Solid, functional, and inspiring design, however, never goes out of style.
[caption id="attachment_280091" align="alignright" width="278"] Vince Stroop[/caption]
Pick up any recent article on hotel and restaurant interior design, and chances are you'll likely come across the term "Instagrammable moments." It's a reference to creating spaces that provide the ideal backdrop for that perfect social media post.
But for longtime hospitality interior designer and architect Vince Stroop, a principal at New York-based Stonehill Taylor Architects, Instagrammable moments are a hotel design trend that needs to disappear.
"This first thing people come to me and say now is, 'We want to have an Instagrammable moment,'" Stroop said. "And, I'm actually tired of hearing of that because that shouldn't be the basis of design for a hotel."
For example, he said, "It's easy to say something like, 'Let's throw some crazy sculpture of naked ducks in there and people are going to want to take photos of it.' But what else? What does that really do for you and for the comm
